Are You a Hyper-Parent? Am I?

I’ve just finished reading Hyper-parenting: Are You Hurting Your Child by Trying Too Hard? by Alvin Rosenfeld, MD, and Nicole Wise.

Hyper-parenting includes “overscheduling” and “over enriching” our children, forcing us as parents to give up what is meaningful to us (other than our kids’ lives). The authors make the point that in a typical middle class American family, there is plenty of enrichment already. We should not fill our days with activities, lessons, educational opportunities too good to be missed, etc, at the detriment of our sanity.

This book fits in well with my current goal of “Piano con Calma”. I want our lives to be enriched, not by the quantity of outside activities we do, but by making connections within our family and community. This week is our slow week and it has been wonderful for all of us. We have planned no activities apart from our weekly trip to the library. The girls are reading, playing games, swimming and enjoying their childhoods.

I know that I like to travel and be on the go, but I also need to be sure that we have lengths of time at home with nothing to do, nowhere to go. It’s hard to avoid the temptation to pack in yet another trip or event.